The Lakers are going to honor the career of Kobe Bryant this coming season by retiring two jersey numbers.

The decision is considered controversial by some people because such a move is believed to be without precedent.

Frankly, I have to agree. I’m shocked that the Lakers aren’t recognizing Bryant by retiring three jersey numbers.

Hey, why not? There’s no such thing as being too over-the-top when it comes to worshipping stars, the Lakers no doubt tempted to simply wrap Bryant in marble and perch him atop Staples Center.

In July, Ivan Rodriguez was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, his likeness forever frozen as a slight grin framed beneath the bill of a Texas Rangers cap. But it wasn’t the first time he was captured as a magnificent piece of art.

Years ago, Rodriguez had a one-ton statue of himself constructed for purposes of displaying the sculpture in his own backyard. The thing stands 6 feet tall, even though the actual Ivan Rodriguez is only 5-9.

Now, being completely serious, naturally the Lakers are taking Nos. 8 and 24 out of circulation in deference to Bryant. They have no other choice, Bryant, even in retirement, still demanding of a double-team.

He wore each number for an equal amount of time and distinguished each to an equal degree of legend.

Bryant scored 16,866 points as No. 8, for example, and 16,777 as No. 24, the totals remarkably close, especially for a player whose shot selection was at times so erratic that critics speculated Bryant was sabotaging playoff games.

If ever someone deserved to have two jersey numbers hung in perpetuity, it is someone like Bryant, someone who created two careers worth of on-court memories to go with two careers worth of off-court drama.

Remembering his time with Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson, Bryant played one of the great soap-opera characters of all-time, those Lakers winning three NBA championships but somehow not a single Daytime Emmy.

This situation is nothing like the one involving Michael Jordan, who wore No. 23 when he was making magic for the Chicago Bulls and No. 45 when he was making outs for the Birmingham Barons.

After returning from his original NBA retirement, Jordan wore No. 45 for the Bulls, too, the images of that time seeming no more bizarre today than the pictures of Jordan as a Washington Wizard, the very embodiment of bizarre.

Forced to settle on either number for Bryant, I’m guessing the Lakers would have chosen 24, since that’s the one he had at the conclusion of his career, the one fans, by the end, most associated with him.

Given that, do you really think someone else ever was going to be issued No. 8 by the Lakers? And who, exactly, would have even wanted to try to be the next No. 8 in purple and gold?

The answer, of course, is LaVar Ball, the only person around here self-assured enough to fill one of Bryant’s famously oversized jerseys, Ball’s bombast alone capable of popping the seams.

Seeing how Vladimir Guerrero also will one day be heading into baseball’s Hall of Fame, the Angels probably should have been more cautious about recycling his former No. 27.

Then again, they recycled it to Mike Trout, their greatest player ever, another all-timer who, had he requested it upon reaching the big leagues, likely would have been issued Guerrero’s old scraggly goatee, as well.

If the Lakers did for some reason actually want to retire a third number for Bryant, they had options. He once scored “81” points in a game. He scored “60” in his final game. He took “50” shots in that game, missing “28.”

Smush Parker wore “1” as a Laker and Raja Bell “19” as a Phoenix Sun, those being two players Bryant once liked about as much as bad breath.

There’s also “6,” a sentimental selection in that everyone then would have one reason to remember the Lakers career of former Bryant teammate Adam Morrison.

This double-number gesture is fitting for Bryant and the Lakers seeing how the franchise once committed the majority of two seasons to acknowledging his contributions, another development without precedent.

I’m pretty certain, though, no one would want the Lakers retiring “48.5,” the total in millions of dollars of Bryant’s final contract, the one that helped hamstring the franchise for those two years.

So, instead, it will be Nos. 8 and 24 going skyward at Staples Center on Dec. 18.

After that, Bryant will one day have his own statue outside the building, and who knows what number his chiseled likeness will wear?

That, however, is a topic for later. Today is all about a player who spent 20 seasons with the Lakers, two decades doing precisely what the Lakers are prepared to do for him: hang championship laundry and put up numbers.

Jeff Miller has been a sports columnist since 1998, having previously written for the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. He began at the Register in 1995 as beat writer for the Angels.

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